NIST binary - technical definition

In 1995, the National Institute of Standards & Technology defined a new standard of measurement that accurately reflects the difference between decimal and binary numbers. The traditional kilo, mega, giga, etc. designations were changed to kibi, mebi, gibi and so on (see table below) when referring to true binary numbers.

For example, one million bytes would be expressed as one "megabyte" (MB) for the decimal number 1,000,000 (10⁶), but one "mebibyte" (MiB) for the binary number 1,048,576 (2²⁰).

Will It Catch On?
After more than a decade, NIST measurements have not become mainstream, but are used when absolute precision is required. See binary values.

 Decimal         Binary

 kilobit (Kb)    kibibit (Kib)  Kilo bInary bit
 megabit (Mb)    mebibit (Mib)  Mega bInary bit
 gigabit (Gb)    gibibit (Gib)  Giga bInary bit
 terabit (Tb)    tebibit (Tib)  Tera bInary bit
 petabit (Tb)    pebibit (Pib)  Peta bInary bit
 exabit  (Eb)    exbibit (Eib)  Exa bInary bit
 zettabit (Zb)   zebibit (Zib)  Zetta bInary bit
 yottabit (Yb)   yobibit (Yib)  Yotta bInary bit

 kilobyte (KB)   kibibyte (KiB)  Kilo bInary Byte
 megabyte (MB)   mebibyte (MiB)  Mega bInary Byte
 gigabyte (GB)   gibibyte (GiB)  Giga bInary Byte
 terabyte (TB)   tebibyte (TiB)  Tera bInary Byte
 petabyte (TB)   pebibyte (PiB)  Peta bInary Byte
 exabyte  (EB)   exbibyte (EiB)  Exa bInary Byte
 zettabyte (ZB)  zebibyte (ZiB)  Zetta bInary Byte
 yottabyte (YB)  yobibyte (YiB)  Yotta bInary Byte